News Corp. and NBC Universal name joint venture

by Steve O'Hear

August 29th, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | No Comments

Hulu News Corp. and NBC Universal have revealed the name of their new online video venture — the so-called YouTube killer, which Google had already dubbed Clown Co., will officially be called “Hulu“.

A statement on the site’s holding page reads:

Why Hulu? Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premier content when, where and how you want it.

The announcement ends a five-month search for a name for the joint venture which is aimed squarely at competing with Google-owned YouTube — through licensing agreements with News Corp. and NBC Universal properties.

“Hulu” will launch as a private beta in October 2007, however, interested users are able to sign-up for invitation from today.

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.